Route:
Day 1 Houhora - North Cape - Three Kings
Day 2 Three Kings - Middlesex bank - Three Kings
Day 3 Three Kings - Kings Bank - Tom Bowlings Bay
Day 4 Tom Bowlings - Garden patch - Houhora

Weather:
Fine throughout with light /moderate variable winds and small swells, except afternoon Day 3 when c3m swells, and all of Day 4 when no wind and flat seas (and virtually no birds!).

Participants:
Tank Barker (skipper of Demelza), Tim Barnard, Derek Bettesworth, Thomas Paul, Ian Smith, Steve Wood, Brent Stephenson and Sav Saville (Wrybill Birding Tours - organisers).

Highlights:
The whole trip was effectively one great big highlight! The first few hours of Day 1 and most of Day 4 had few significant birds, but lots of flesh-footed and Buller's shearwaters, fairy prions, black petrels and common diving-petrels. The first WHITE-NAPED PETREL appeared after about 5 hours at sea, and was followed by a staggering 26 ( yep - 26!) more during the rest of the trip. The first of 20 WILSON'S STORM-PETRELS was the next decent bird, and a slight disappointment was the fact that only Wilson's and white-faced stormies were seen, so no NZSPs nor the much hoped-for White-bellied. More pterodromas pitched up after midday on Day1, with many black-winged, a few Cook's petrels and the first KERMADEC PETREL (an intermediate phase bird). Steve Wood had brief views of a pale cookilaria petrel with a dark head which may have been a Stejneger's and then we all saw a chunky, darker pterodroma with a blackish head and reasonably strong black underwing bars which we thought was probably a GOULD'S PETREL. Day 1 ended at the Three Kings, feeding on Striped Marlin and listening to scores of grey-faced and black-winged petrels overhead in the dark. Day 2 dawned misty but soon cleared, allowing great views of swags of grey-faced petrels, big rafts of Buller's shearwaters and then quite clearly a(nother) GOULD'S PETREL - this time allowing more prolonged looks and dispelling any doubts about the identity of the previous day's bird. This was followed by another 6 KERMADEC PETRELS (we eventually tallied 18 Kermadecs for the trip!!), a few grey ternlets, a pomarine skua with fully developed "spoons", and then, a personal highlight, a white dot in the distance which we were able to chase down and confirm as a WHITE TERN. It looked as if Day 3 would have to be truly spectacular to improve on the previous 2, and so it duly was! A sub-adult LONG-TAILED SKUA sitting on the water was a good appetizer for our first chumming stop which brought in a photographable GOULD'S PETREL, at least 6 different KERMADEC PETRELS, Wilson's storm-petrel, grey ternlet and a brown skua. All the while there was a myriad of pretty much all the previously mentioned species, and then we topped it all off with a RED-TAILED TROPICBIRD and a fourth GOULD'S PETREL. Day 4 was a massive anticlimax - with flat calm seas, no wind at all and very few birds of note - a couple more Wilson's stormies and a brown skua being the best.

Species list: Estimate total and (most at any time)
Wandering Albatross - 9 (2), including a couple of very young birds. Most appeared to be likely Gibson's with one apparent Antipodean on Day3.
White-capped Albatross - 13 (3)
Black-browed Albatross - 1 (1) adult
Campbell Albatross - 3 (1) all adults and another 2 ad BB/Campbells unidentified
Northern Buller's Albatross - 25 (5) at sea and 10+ over Three Kings breeding site
Buller's Shearwater - many hundreds (200) more or less constantly in view
Sooty Shearwater - 2 (1)
Flesh-footed Shearwater - many hundreds (100) often 10 -15 following boat
Fluttering Shearwater - 1000 (1000) several individuals and small groups and a mass at Three Kings
Little Shearwater - 10 (4) surprisingly few
Common Diving Petrel - 200 (10)
Black Petrel - 30 (4) one individual had a white chin, though clearly not a White-chinned Petrel
Fairy Prion - 500 (100)
Cook's Petrel - 10 (1) and several distant cookilarias not assigned to species
Gould's Petrel - 4 (1)
Black-winged Petrel - 75 (4)
White-naped Petrel - 27 (3)
Grey-faced Petrel - 90 (5)
Kermadec Petrel - 18 (4) one dark phase, 2 light phase and the rest all intermediate
Wilson's Storm-petrel - 20 (2)
White-faced Storm-petrel - 8 (2)
Red-tailed Tropicbird - 1 (1)
Australasian Gannet - 600 (500) lots at the Three Kings breeding site
Arctic Skua - 7 (3)
Pomarine Skua - 1 (1)
Long-tailed Skua - 1 (1)
Brown Skua - 2 (1)
Grey Ternlet - 16 (5)
White Tern - 1 (1).

We will be running the same trip next year at almost the same time - if you are interested in coming please let me know. Most of this year's participants will be going next year - so book early!!!!! There is only room for 7 birders........